A Forbidden Alchemy (The Artisan Trilogy)

by Stacey McEwan

He grinned knowingly. “You look like the type. Bow in your hair. Pin up your arse. No interest in an honest day’s work.” They sounded like someone else’s words. Words he’d learned by heart.

Ma used to say it was one thing to be down, and quite another to dig yourself a grave.

Smiths molded copper, iron, nickel, gold, and silver. Patrick admitted the intricacies of their work could be admired.

Alchemy was most important, of course. Only an Alchemist could crack open a lump of terranium. Without them, there was no idium. No siphoning ceremonies. No Artisans. There was only one other order that might match the class of an Alchemist.

“You’d be the only earth Charmer in a hundred years or more.”

“There’s meanin’ in everythin’ if you look hard enough. There’s joy in it, too.

For one horrifying moment, her eyes went glassy and she gulped in a fragile way. Patrick had the urge to touch her cheek. In the end, he didn’t. “If the idium doesn’t work, you could come back to Kenton Hill with me instead,” Patrick heard himself say. Didn’t know why he’d said it, except that his chest was surging and Nina hadn’t blinked.

Patrick plucked four vials of idium from their resting places and shoved them deep into his pockets. Two with wax seals, and two without.

You’ve got a mind of your own, he reminded me. Don’t let those fuckers take it.

I’d never thought of desire that way—that it was the wanting that consumed a person, not the object they sought.

“You are very young. Perhaps too young to imagine what happens when the means for destruction is placed in the wrong hands.

“We only know of history what is recorded. And records are easily lost or rewritten. I can’t know for sure. But the fact remains that at some point, our leaders thought it better that power be meted out only to those who could be trusted with it.”

He was younger than I’d figured, certainly more handsome. He had defined cheekbones and jaw, wavy chestnut hair, the chain of a pocket watch against his chest. From the inside of his coat, he pulled a tin lighter and lit a cigarette between his lips. “Hello, Miss Clarke,” he said in that same drawl, as though every word dragged from his lips was one too many. He studied me openly, his eyes gliding over my feet, legs, waist, chest, neck, and then, finally, his eyes found mine.

“I’ve been lookin’ for you,” he said. Then there was nothing but a weighted silence. I stared at him, and he at me.

“I’ve been searchin’ for you, Miss Clarke,” he drawled. “Me and everyone else, it seems.” I squared my shoulders, though my knees shook. “Well, here I am.”

“You wouldn’t hurt me, Nina Harrow,” he said. “We know too much about each other. Don’t we?”

“You look a fuckin’ sight,” he said casually, then began down the hill without her, if only to drag his eyes away. “Come on. I got a place for you to wash yourself. There’s even a bed.” “No dungeon?” “Havin’ them remodeled,” he answered, grinning at the sound of her feet following. “The chains are all rusted up.”

Lord, he’d hoped she hadn’t grown to be beautiful.

“That’s how you’ve stayed hidden all this time?” I asked. “You move about in tunnels?” “We’re miners,” he said, and I hated the smirk in his voice. “It ain’t so mysterious.”

“Then you’ll need to break down the door and hope Sam is feelin’ generous enough to let you pass. Though I wouldn’t wager it if I were you. I’ve paid him to drag you back in, should you try it. Don’t try it, miss, for my sake. One knock on the head is regrettable, two would begin to make me question my honor.”

“Rest.” His voice was deeper, hypnotic even. “I need you ready for what’s comin’. You’re safe here, I promise.” Nowhere was safe. A sigh, and then a hand swept tangles of damp hair from my forehead, and I could not tell if it was my own or that of another. Darkness smothered sensation, and I gladly curled into its embrace.

“Does this coin have another side?” He flipped Lord Tanner’s face over. A canary glinted back at me.

“And did you ever think of me?” The coin lay forgotten.

“I don’t believe you,” he said. I wanted to punch him. He held up his hands to placate me, clearly reading the violence in my expression. “I only meant that I don’t believe you’re without sympathy. You likely have too much of it. I can see it in your fists,”

“Easy,” he said, as though I were a skittish horse. “God, woman. Did your daddy never teach you to punch a man?”

“This is hardly the place to discuss murder. I brought you here for tea.”

Patrick let out a sigh, tension gathering in his shoulders. Then, finally, he turned to face her, wondering what expression she might wear. He found disgust. Fear. Fuck.

So, he was the judge and the executioner. I wondered how often he broke eye sockets like it was a transaction. Kenton Hill was a town run by one man. I wondered if he knew how unbalanced it was, to have collected so much control, to be the sole puppeteer. Had he considered how easy it would be for someone to snip all the strings when only one hand held them?

“You planning to carry me up there?” I asked. “Throw me over your shoulder?” His eyes flashed. “You say that like it isn’t exactly what I’d like to do.” I swallowed. “It’s a lot of stairs, Patrick. You wouldn’t manage.” “Careful.” He crouched until his nose was level with mine, his lips a hairsbreadth away. “That sounded an awful lot like a challenge.”

“You wouldn’t dare.” “But I would dare, Nina,” he breathed. “I’m just bidin’ my time. Don’t give me an excuse.”

“If you don’t want me defendin’ your honor, you can head on up to that bed you mentioned us sharing.” My collar felt suddenly too tight. “I suspect my honor has never entered your mind.” “Oh, it has,” he said darkly. He leaned so close that his mouth hovered over my ear. “Say the word, darlin’, and I’ll carry you up those stairs.”

“Or perhaps I just like invokin’ that Scurry tongue of yours. It comes out when you’re mad.” I aimed a quick jab at his stomach, which he caught easily. “Lord,” he muttered, fingers slipping around my hand again. “We need to teach you to fight properly, darlin’. Surely, they breed quicker hands in Scurry.” He gave another of those barely suppressed smiles, the ones that he’d failed to fight back.

“Pardon,” Donny continued, ignoring me. “But I don’t give a figgy for your station. I meant what are you? Are you beautiful? Married? Someone tell me if I should be romancin’ her—” “Not unless you want to spend the night in a canal, Donny,” Patrick said evenly.

“Bloody hell. She’s a beauty, ain’t she? I can tell. Guess I’ve already blown me chances.” Patrick nodded, upending yet another glass of amber liquor to his lips. “Aye,” he rasped, not looking my way. “I’m afraid she is.”

Patrick’s gaze softened considerably when he looked at me, but his hand waited.

“I thought you didn’t dance?” “I don’t,” he said. “But evidently, you do.”

“Every woman should be complimented. Especially by the men who cut in to dance with them.” “Then, you have very pretty freckles.” “You’re jealous,” I said boldly, though I could hardly believe it. “Why should you be jealous?” “I can’t say, Nina. But there it is.” “You can’t say?” “No,” he said flatly. “I can’t. Can you say why your heart’s beating out of your chest?”

“Do you intend to intercede every time another man looks my way?” He grinned. He couldn’t seem to help it. “I intend to put the rest of these boys to shame and spoil you for anyone else.”

“Says the man who can’t dance.” His grin turned devilish. “I said that I don’t dance, not that I can’t.” His chest swelled beneath my hand. “Hold on, Scurry girl.”

The muscle of his stomach flattened against my own, and he whirled us suddenly sideways. We broke into the circle of couples, me laughing in shock, and the music, the cacophony, came swarming back in. I hardly knew the steps to the dances, and it didn’t seem to matter. Patrick was, by contrast, proficient in all. He smiled wickedly, laughed as he caught and released me, spun me back into his arms, linked my elbow with his. His neck was hot where my hand touched it. When I mock curtsied at the end of a particularly quick song, his eyes sparked and he ran a hand over his face, as though it physically pained him.

“You’re too beautiful to be real,” he said suddenly, softly. With my ear pressed to his chest, I could feel the words, too. “There’s your compliment.” His fingers traced a very careful line then, slowly up my spine and back down, and in their wake, they left a trail of fire.

“I drew pictures of you,” I told him, giving him this one small piece of myself. “In school.” He didn’t speak. Just pulled me round and round in a small orbit. I swallowed. “I was scared to forget you.” The sound of his heart beating made me think of caves under leagues of sea. “I never had a hope in the world of forgetting you, Scurry girl.”

He shook his head. “I’d hoped you were hideous.” I smiled. “And I’d hoped you weren’t an arse.” “Well,” he muttered, eyes lowering to my mouth. “We don’t always get what we want.” And then he kissed me.

“I…” he stumbled, swearing beneath his breath. It was odd to see him falter. “I’m sorry,” he managed. I gathered he had little practice with apologies. I tried not to sound breathless. “Are you?” “Not even a bit,” he said. “Nevertheless, it was… impolite.”

“Walk with me,” he said then, eyes still glinting. “You’ve tortured me enough.” But he didn’t look like a tortured man. He looked and laughed exactly like the boy of twelve I remembered. He took my hand and pulled me through the rivulets of people. By the tapped barrels along the wall, I spied Tess Colson watching her son with a curious expression. She marked his course with a smile far gentler than I thought her capable.

There was a saying in Scurry, that the anger of the parent leaves traces in the blood. Babies got their eyes from their mother and their bloodlust from their father. Their mum’s bitterness, their grandfather’s right hook. All of us born with hereditary rot in our bellies. It seemed these children had been spared it. But Patrick and I, we were sure carriers.

“What about you?” I slipped my hand in the crook of Patrick’s arm, the fever of the night making me brave. “Did you ever play coppers and thieves?” “Darlin’, I’m playing it every day.” I sniffed a laugh. “I suppose you are.” “Haven’t lost yet,” he said, kicking a stone from his course.

His hands slipped over my waist and around my back, and his voice ghosted over my lips. “I’ll wake up tomorrow, and you’ll have been somethin’ I imagined, I’m sure of it.”

“And what will happen to this… romance when he finds out why you’re really here, Nina?” he asked. “When Patrick finds out who sent you?” My fingers clenched. “Theo, please… someone might hear—” “Or worse,” Theo continued, “what will happen to you, when Tanner learns you’ve been seduced by the man you were sent to bury?”

there is little more dire than a woman.